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How to run a non-destructive repair of Windows 8?

I am heartily sick of my new Lenovo Windows 8 laptop. It always seems to have some problem, somewhere. Among its annoyances are:-

It won't restart. If you click "restart", the screen shows the word "restarting" with the whirling wait symbol, and just stays like that indefinitely until I crash out with the power button.

It take ages to shut down. After clicking "shut down" the screen goes blank normally, but the computer continues to run for at least 3-4 minutes before switching itself off.

If I open Windows Explorer, I have to wait at least three minutes before I can use it while a green progress bar crawls across the address bar at the top, showing the word "Libraries". I do have a large collection of photos on the computer, but this never used to happen.

I want to run a full non-destructive repair of Windows 8 64-bit. With Windows 7 this used to be easy. You just ran the Windows disc and chose the repair function. However with Windows 8 it seems that the only choices are;

to "refresh" Windows - which preserves my data but removes all my software except that which was factory loaded, or

to completely wipe out everything and perform a clean reload of windows.

Is there any way I can run a repair of Windows 8 from the system partition on the HDD without damaging any of my software or data?

Dump Windows 8 and return to Windows 7. I was dual booting Win 8 and 7 but the amount of problems I had with 8 reminded me of Vista which was another OS I used very breifly. Hopefully Windows 9 will cease the riduculous obsession Midrosoft has of making even the most simplest of operations on a PC more of a game of hide and seek.

I will try sfc /scannow to see whether that works. However, I am reluctant to go through the hassle of a "refresh", which will mean reinstalling all of my own software.

I have seriously considered reverting to Windows 7, which was an excellent OS. Windows 8 is, in my opinion, an absolute dog. It may be fine for a smartphone or tablet, but on a computer it's ridiculously complicated, compared with previous versions.

I'm astonished that there's apparently no repair function for Windows 8. What a huge backwards step!

I suppose I could ultimately talk to Lenovo about rejecting the computer, but I went down that route some years ago with another company. It's a nightmare! They just dig in their heels and say that the problems have been caused by the user and/or someone else's software.

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